Keeping Busy

There’s never a dull moment when you run your own business. Today, I received a phone call from Steve, another photographer who lives in California. We have conversed many times on various forums but have never met let alone spoken on the phone. Imagine my surprise when I received a call from him. He was having some problems with some software and called for help. I try to make the time to help others. So after spending an hour on the phone with Steve, we got his problem fixed.

He also was helping me put off a task I’ve not only been dreading but putting off for months, inventory. Over the last couple of years, I’ve bought, sold and upgraded much of the equipement I use. My current inventory list, includes film cameras I sold 2 years ago. So it was time to bite the bullet and inventory everything. OK not everything but everything of significant value I wanted to make sure I had insured. Sheryl helped me with it and it took us just over an hour to finish the first part of the job. Now I have to enter it all into the computer and gather the rest of the information the insurance companies need(ie. purchase date, purchase price, replacement cost etc…).

Yesterday the creative juices were flowing! I not only started but finished Shelia dn Ricks album design. It was 52 pages with 170 images in a little over 5 hours. Here are two of my favorite 2 page spreads from the design:

Collage of wedding photos as seen in the album
wedding photos as seen in a wedding album

A current version of their wedding album can be seen at
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Mixed Emotions

Delivering a wedding album to a client is full of mixed emotions for me. On one hand it is fun to see the look on the clients faces for the first time as they explore each page and relive their wedding day as they turn the pages. Meanwhile, I’m a little sad because, I grow close to my clients during the time we’re working together. Now with the delivery of the wedding album, my clients will be on their way. If I’m lucky, I get to see my past clients when I’ve been referred to photograph one of their friends or family member’s weddings. It is always nice to see previous clients.

Anyway, today I delivered albums to two clients. Deanna/Jim and Beth/Mike. Two sets of very different clients. Deanna and Jim both have children of their own who are about marrying age. Meanwhile Beth and Mike are just starting lives apart from their parents. However, I enjoyed seeing the looks of their faces as they saw their wedding albums for the first time. Beth practically cried all over again when she saw this page in her album:

Wedding album collage from Beth and Mike's album

So now it is time to archive all of the computer files from both weddings. Then the paper files get packed away. Time to look forward to this year’s clients and the new friends I’ll make.

A Busy Weekend

As many of you can imagine, a wedding photographer’s weekend can be a busy time. While most folks get a day or two to relax or run errands, weekends are my busiest days. This weekend was no different. Knowing that it would be busy, I spent Friday evening with my family. We took the kids to the McDonald’s playland to eat and then burn off some energy. However, we couldn’t stay too late as I had a wedding the next day.

Actually, I was joining another photographer at his wedding to see how he does things and as a chance to experiment. When you are the primary photographer, a wedding is no place to take risks. However, this was my chance to try an idea, photograph a wedding completely in black and white. It was a lot of fun working with another accomplished photographer. We bounced a lot of ideas off of one another and in the long run it will make both of us better. I learned a lot from my experiment. I hope to be able to post a couple of photos from this wedding in a couple of days. But my paying clients come first.

Which brings us to today’s engagement session. Actually it was earlier this evening. Lauren and Joel are getting married over Labor Day weekend at Starved Rock. They live out of town and came in to visit her parents for Passover. The only time we could schedule their engagement session was this evening (Sunday) at about 7:30. It was around sunset when we started the session at the Schaumburg Town Center. I had been here before for engagement sessions. But like Disney World, the center takes on a whole new look at night. We had an incredible engagement session! See for yourself:

Lauren and Joel's Engagement Session at Schaumburg Town Center

Lauren and Joel's Engagement Session at Schaumburg Town Center

Lauren and Joel's Engagement Session at Schaumburg Town Center

This spot is not easily seen from the road. And they wondered why I wanted to meet them at the Oberweis Dairy (it is next door to the town center).